If you’ll forgive the pun, you could say Chris Haddock has jumped from being a big fish in a smaller Canadian pond to being a small fish in a giant American ocean, its waves lapping up against a boardwalk.
Four years after a long run producing critically acclaimed television series in Canada ended with the CBC’s unceremonious cancellation of Intelligence, Haddock is working on one of the most acclaimed shows on television anywhere, as writer and co-executive producer for Boardwalk Empire. He joined the series for its third season, which begins shooting this week in New York.
Haddock is also enjoying the belated almost frenzied interest in Intelligence, fuelled in part by the creator of another current gigantic TV hit, Breaking Bad. “My hat is off to Chris; he’s an excellent writer,” said Vince Gilligan during a recent interview from his Los Angeles office.
The move to Boardwalk and New York, where Haddock’s now living, is a surprise plot twist for the Vancouverite who was once the poster boy for Canadian TV success. Da Vinci’s Inquest ran seven seasons on CBC – and was broadcast in more than 140 countries. Haddock followed it with a sequel, Da Vinci’s City Hall, and then with Intelligence.
It has also meant going from being the guy in charge to being one of seven writers in the room, working under show-runner Terence Winter (The Sopranos). If Haddock, 59, is bothered by this loss of absolute creative control – going from the Nucky Thompson in the writers’ room to, say, a Waxey Gordon – he shows no sign of it.
“I don’t have an overwhelming need to be the top guy,” says Haddock, on the phone from New York. “Since I’ve come and fit into the room, I’ve really enjoyed not having all the responsibilities. And it’s giving me a real perspective on what I’ve been doing for the past dozen years as a show-runner too.”
Haddock describes himself as a collaborative show-runner, encouraging and supportive of input, but never shy about exercising his authority. Da Vinci star Nicholas Campbell calls him a “benevolent dictator” and “the best boss I ever had.”
“He’s just a wonderful eye, he’s hands on, his scripts speak for themselves, obviously, but it’s the on-set presence that he brings and level of quality that he gently insists on which is why I think his shows are so good,” says actor John Cassini, who has appeared in several Haddock projects, including Intelligence and Da Vinci. “We all know now how unique he is and I’m really incredibly thrilled that Boardwalk Empire has seen it and invited him to their party, because he deserves to be playing in that field.”
For Haddock, working for Boardwalk boss Terence Winter has affirmed his own methods as a show-runner – Winter is being very much about collaboration and letting ideas simmer. Haddock sees his role as being there to support the creator’s vision: “I just try to fall in line and learn to really just support what they’re doing. Throwing logs on the fire, that’s what I’m trying to do.”
A couple of weeks after the telephone conversation, Haddock is now speaking in a Vancouver coffee shop. He’s home to work in quiet seclusion on a Boardwalk script – a far cry from the Da Vinci days when he would escape to his trailer to write when he could in between rehearsals or shooting or stints in the edit suite.
It’s Gilligan – another show-runner – whom Haddock credits with creating a belated buzz for Intelligence – and, by extension, its creator – in Hollywood. These days, Intelligence is everywhere. The online pop-culture bible Slate ran a rapturous piece last summer headlined “The Canadian Wire: What, you haven’t watched Intelligence?” If you watch The Wire on Netflix DVDs, you’ll get an instant recommendation for Intelligence (which Netflix calls “smartly plotted and smoothly acted”).
“It caught a real breeze there,” says Haddock. “It was just one of those late-breaking sort of cult things. ... I might have been a little bit ahead of my time there when I was doing it for the CBC.”
